Mammoth Site Continues To Educate

Orange Elementary from Waterloo took part in digging on Friday at the mammoth site in Mahaska County. (submitted photo)

Mahaska County, Iowa – The digging for mammoth bones is once again nearing the end of the season, but until then the opportunity for education and discovery continues at the rural Mahaska County site.

On Friday, a group of elementary students from Orange Elementary in Waterloo were on hand to help scientists dig and discover. “A good bunch of kids,” said Dave Brenzel of the Indian Creek Nature Center.

While there, the students didn’t make any discovery of bones, but did discover and learn about archaeology, and about the animals and plants that made up Iowa 14,000 years ago. The students helped to square off the dirt wall, in order to help geologists in better understanding Iowa’s past.

Unfortunately for the students, they missed bone fragment discovery by just minutes.

At the site, two small bones were discovered. They appeared to be green-fracture pieces like those discovered in the past. These types of discovery speak to scientists about the bones and the site. Green fractures and the bones they are discovering means that the bones moved before they were weathered, and had spent considerable time in the ground.

“This is a clue,” Brenzel said of the discovery on Friday.

Those new fragments join a tooth that was recently discovered as mysteries.

Finding the source of the bones may be an area of potential exploration yet for the site, if the potential challenges of the depth of the digging can be addressed for safety standards.

This is the final year of digging under a grant for Mahaska County Conservation. That grant allowed for the purchase of many of the mammoth bones already discovered, and for the bones recovered during the past two years of digging.

No agreements have been reached with the land owner over future usage at this point.

The past two years at the site has yielded considerable information about the geology of Iowa, as well as a few bones and fragments. Unfortunately, they haven’t found the large discovery of bones in the past two years like they did previously.

There is no information about what the future of the county and site will be in the upcoming year, or what sorts of scientific partnerships are in place for the dig-site.